Flowers in West Ham Park

Image: © Marathon Taken: 21 Aug 2014

West Ham Park was formerly the grounds of a large mansion called Ham House, it was owned by Dr John Fothergill, an eminent Quaker physician and botanist, from 1762 until his death in 1780. During this time by commissioning plant hunters, Fothergill amassed a unique collection of several thousand plants and trees from every part of the habitable globe. The collection, partly housed in a run of hot and cold greenhouses 260 feet long, and also including an ornamental canal for aquatic plants, was considered by Sir Joseph Banks to be "second only to Kew" in importance. One of Fothergill's many successes was the first tea tree to flower in England. His main interest in botany was in plants which might be useful in medicine or for food. On one occasion he treated a sea captain with yellow fever and in lieu of payment requested that the captain bring him "two barrels of earth from Borneo, taken from as many points as possible". From this soil, many new plants were obtained and introduced into English gardens. After Fothergill's death, the plant collection was sold and the greenhouses largely dismantled. The estate passed eventually to Samuel Gurney, a Quaker banker and philanthropist and brother of the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. After his death in 1856, his grandson John Gurney wanted the estate preserved as an open space and offered it for £25,000. The family put up £10,000, the City Corporation £10,000 and the rest was raised by public subscription. The estate was then conveyed to the City Corporation, and West Ham Park was opened on 20th July 1874. It has been managed by the City ever since. The former site of Fothergill's ornamental canal can still be seen in parts of the park, as here with the depression on the left.

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